How can brides use social media to plan their perfect wedding?

Technology is gradually becoming a larger part of our lives; your phone can double as a computer, Amazon is putting plans in place to drop off your parcel by drone and it seems most of the country is on Facebook.

With 22% of the global population on Facebook and an estimated 2.95 billion with a social media account by 2020 it’s no wonder that brides are using social media to plan their big day. If you’re a bride to be and looking to make things easier on yourself, here are some of The Wedding Secret’s top tips to hacking the planning process.

Getting Started

First things first you’ll need to start thinking about the sorts of theme, style or colour that you’d like at your wedding. This will make the whole planning much easier as you’ll have a solid base to work off. Sites like Pinterest and Instagram are perfect for this.

With Pinterest you will have access to a wide range of inspiration covering everything from the cake and the cutlery to the dress and first dance. By making a wedding board and saving all your wedding inspiration to it, you can get a good feel for how you’d like your wedding to be. Pinterest has roughly 40 million people using it for wedding inspiration so, if nothing else, you can be sure that you’ll find something you like.

Instagram is another image based resource that is great for giving you a taste of a variety of different wedding ideas before settling on the ones for you. Both these sites also give you a great opportunity to see your wedding ideas in the flesh. With thousands of marriages per year in the UK alone, there’s a good chance that, no matter your wedding plans, someone will have done something similar.

Social Media gives you a great chance to see your plans in action before putting them into place; riding in on horseback seems like a great idea until you see all the pictures of brides who fell off!

Keeping Organised

Keeping organised is a big part of wedding planning – no one wants to get to the big day and realise they forgot to book a caterer. While there is something deeply satisfying about opening a new journal, and indeed there are a variety of notebooks specifically designed for wedding planning, the risks of losing, forgetting or damaging the book are too high.

Instead of a wedding planning book, why not try your hand at a wedding planning blog? Use a free site like Wix or WordPress and you have a cheap, easy way to manage all your wedding thoughts and plans.

The best part is that the blog can be accessed anywhere! If you’re out and see something you like you can just bring it up on your phone and leave yourself a reminder. Plus, if you’ve been talking through your options with a photographer or baker you can just send them a link and they’ll have access to all your wedding plans and can make sure that the photos or cake matches.

Sourcing Suppliers

Social media is also a great place to source wedding suppliers. Nowadays most companies will have a company account. These accounts, especially ones like Facebook tend to be more up to date than what might be on their website so you’ll have access to their most recent news and pics.

With venues you can get a feel for what the place will look like all year round and with companies like photographers, caterers or dress makers you can get a more up to date portfolio of their recent projects.

Facebook also offers a great opportunity to get feedback on these suppliers and venues. Messaging or leaving a comment could be a convenient way of getting in touch and having any questions answered. Another perk is that, by reading the reviews and comments on a venue or supplier’s Facebook page, you can get a better idea of the standards of service that they provide.

Keeping in Touch

Once you’ve sorted out the guest list and got the ball rolling on booking suppliers your new struggle will be getting everyone to the church on time.

When it comes to managing your; suppliers, family and friends, the phrase ‘herding cats’ comes to mind. There’s so much to organise and so many people to keep up to date with, that it can feel like you’re playing the world’s most frustrating game of Chinese Whispers.

By setting up a Facebook wedding page, or even a group chat and inviting all your friends and family into it means everyone can be kept up to date with what is going on quickly and easily. Sure, there might be the odd Grandparent who doesn’t have an account, but calling one person is far easier than trying to call the whole guests list if plans unexpectedly change.

You can also use social media to keep in touch with your suppliers and this is incredibly useful if your wedding is happening further away. Rather than driving three hours for a face to face consultation or resigning yourself to email you can simply Skype them.

Cashing it In

If you’ve got a strict timeframe, or are trying to work around a tight budget, social media can be a huge help. Lots of companies will offer freebies or giveaways to followers or subscribers on their social media page. Plus most venues will offer some kind of off-peak or seasonal wedding deal. By following your desired venue or supplier on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter you can make sure that you’re one of the first to catch these deals!

Of course these are just a few suggestions. The world of social media and online planning is changing all the time, so make sure to keep an eye out for the site or platform that you feel works best for you. To get started with your wedding planning, why not head on over to The Wedding Secret and check out some of the great locations in your area?